Has anyone seen "God Who Wasn't There"?

as soon as I watch it I’ll let you know, but it does look good.

lol,
WHAT A GREAT MOVIE
I highly recommended it
(unless your a bible thumper)

and for the bible thumpers watch this

Sure, it’s worth watching. I own the DVD, and it is simply atheists preaching to the choir. It’s nothing you want to show at a Southern Baptist Revival meeting, though. =)

@Psychedelic_Zebra – I disagree. A movie starring Richard Dawkins will help religious fundamentalists recruiting new members. They love the DVD. At least this is my hypothesis, see my recent Fluther question

http://www.fluther.com/disc/61293/aggressive-atheism-promotes-religious-fundamentalism-what-are-the-pros-and/

Shermer is an outspoken advocate of skepticism. And he warns people not to fall into the trap of pseudohistory. He lists 25 reasons why people believe in weird things, for example

Theory Influences Observations — When you have a theory of something, you interpret the results inside your theory. So when Columbus arrived in the New World, he saw Asian spices and roots. His theory said he should be in Asia.

This means: Some atheists support the theory that the world would be a better place without religion. If Jesus didn’t exist, the Christian religion loses its foundation.

Bold Statements Do Not Make Claims True — L. Ron Hubbard called Dianetics “a milestone for man comparable to his discovery of fire and superior to his invention of the wheel and the arch.” But it wasn’t. The more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary well-tested the evidence must be.

This means: Jesus myth hypothesis is a bold statement and only a minority of historians currently support it. We need extraordinary well-tested evidence.

Emotive Words and False Analogies — Loaded language can be used to provoke emotion and obscure rationality. Industry can be called “raping the environment” or abortion “murdering innocent children” or a political opponent a “communist.” Rarely does this further rational thought, but clouds the issue with emotion and rhetoric.

This means: Richard Dawkins is part of the DVD. He’s a genius not only in biology, but also in rhetoric and polemics and emotive words. He is the role model for atheist fundamentalists (see also the Fluther question mentioned above).

Hasty Generalization — Also known as prejudice, or drawing conclusions before the facts warrant. A couple of bad teachers and it’s a bad school. A couple of bad cars and that brand of automobile is unreliable.

This means: Many atheists claim that all theists are superstitious. They also claim the bible is a dangerous book because it contains statements that appeal to people to commit genocide.

See also http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/pseudohistory.html

Historians use scholarly methods, see for example

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus#Scholarly_Methods

My (computer scientist) interpretation of all this:

The probability that Jesus is a real historical figure is 98% or more. But the very essence of science is questioning itself all the time. This applies to history as well. More research is required to confirm or refute the Jesus myth hypothesis.

This does not mean that everything recorded by the four evangelists is exactly what Jesus said or did. There is a gap between Jesus’ life and the writing of the New Testament.

@mattbrowne well, I respect you for your opinion, and I respect your right to what you believe is true in your life, personal and public. It’s been awhile since I’ve watched the DVD, and I really cannot agree with the fundamentalists on either side of this equation. I do like Shermer over Dawkins, simply because Shermer likes to focus on other things despite the supposed ‘irrationality’ of theists. His defense of the Holocaust as real I find to be well thought out when he takes the deniers to task in his book on the subject.

I recently traded my God Delusion book on swaptree for an Anne Rice Vampire book I needed to complete my vampire fiction collection. That should give you an idea of my backing for Dawkins. I much prefer the original book on the subject by George Smith. Smith explains it nicely without using the sort of condescending language that Dawkins is known for.

Why is an expert biologist like Richard Dawkins part of the DVD?

This is a bit like an expert historian of the period of the Roman empire giving a testimony for a DVD called ‘The Evolution Myth – Has anyone seen Homo Erectus?’ Historians are not qualified to talk about evolutionary biology.

To me it would make sense if the world’s major historial journals publish articles like ‘There’s growing evidence that Jesus never lived. His figure was invented by a group called XYZ.’

Dawkins can believe whatever he wants. He can share with us the reasons why he’s an atheist. He can also share with us what he thinks about Christianity. But this doesn’t make him an expert of history.